Currently the death toll rises as the Center of Paris is on lockdown. There have been attacks in at least three locations. a Paris Cambodian restaurant, an explosion in a bar that is near the Paris futbol stadium and at Bataclan Arts Centre concert hall. Other shootings have been reported but not confirmed at a Shopping Mall, another restaurant and the Louvre Museum. A hostage situation continues with reports of at least 60 hostages at the Bataclan Arts Centre.
Witnesses, according to the BBC described several gunman storming into the Bataclan Arts Centre firing their weapons into the air and shooting people on their way in.
As many as 60 people have been killed with countless injuries.
President Francois Hollande has closed the French borders, issued a state of emergency and is asking people in Paris to stay indoors.
The situation is still ongoing with numerous attacks being reported spreading out from the center of Paris.
Not all the details are known but several news agencies are reporting that there has been a shooting in a Paris restaurant, an explosion in a bar that is near the Paris futbol stadium, and another shooting near the Bataclan arts centre, a concert hall, with reports of hostages taken there.
At least 18 people have been killed, French police have told AFP news agency.
Reports say French President Francois Hollande was watching the match at paris futbol stadium and has been moved to safety.
According to CBS News, BFM television reported that several were dead in the restaurant shootout, where at least one man was seen opening fire with machine gun. Two police officials confirmed the shooting to the Associated Press.
Not long after, several news agencies including BBC News, NBC News, and CBS News reported that an explosion took place in a bar near France’s futbol stadium where they are currently hosting a game against Germany. An Associated Press that was in the stadium stated that there were two explosion noises, but French police have only confirmed one.
BBC News states that the shootout is still ongoing.
A Jewish mother was one of two victims of anti-Semitic attacks in the Paris area.
The woman was injured by three African women who attacked because the Jewish woman complained about their children throwing a soccer ball at her daughter.
As the trio of women were attacking the Jewish woman, witnesses say they were shouting anti-Semitic slogans and comments. One witness said the assailants yelled “Hitler didn’t finish the job” and “that Jews were a filthy race.”
One of the women said the victim needed more beatings.
The woman was treated in a hospital for her injuries and required several days of recovery.
“Increasingly, banal conflicts involving Jews degenerate into anti-Semitic incidents and assaults,” the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism wrote in a statement, which urged police to “get to the bottom of what happened.”
The BNVCA also reported that a 16-year-old Jewish boy was attacked by four men of Middle Eastern descent. He was struck in the face and had his phone stolen from him while a fifth man told the gang of four to “break” the victim of the assault.
The boy required emergency eye surgery at Rothschild Hospital.
Two people are dead after a raid by an anti-terrorism team in Verviers, Belgium.
The group had connected to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS and had been working on Paris-style terrorist attacks within Belgium.
VTM News reported that federal Belgian police were able to take one suspect into custody near a train station as part of the operation.
A senior Belgian counter-terrorism official says that the operation in Verviers is just one of several anti-terror raids currently taking place in the country. The group reportedly had just returned from Syria where they had received ISIS training on carrying out terrorist attacks.
The attacks reportedly were planned in retaliation for coalition airstrikes against ISIS.
The official said under condition of anonymity that situations on Thursday with the group changed to the point Belgian forces had to stop surveillance and immediately carry out the raid.
Al Qaeda in Yemen formally claimed responsibility for last week’s terrorist attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The spokesman for the group, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, claimed the attack was ordered by the leadership of AQAP because the newspaper had insulted the prophet Mohammad. The group posted a video with the claim on YouTube.
“As for the blessed Battle of Paris, we…claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God,” said Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi.
The attack led by Cherif and Said Kouachi had been called an Islamic terrorist attack from the beginning after the brothers told witnesses at the site of the shooting they were connected to Al Qaeda. Western leaders downplayed the Al Qaeda connection claiming that they had no direct evidence of Al Qaeda’s guidance.
The terrorists also mocked the peace rally that took place on Sunday.
“Look at how they gathered, rallied and supported each other; strengthening their weakness and dressing their wounds,” it said of Western leaders who attended the event.
“Look carefully at their gathering. They are the same who fought us in Afghanistan and Caucasus, in Gaza, the Levant, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.”
The gunmen responsible for the Islamic terrorist attack on a French satirical magazine are dead after a raid by French police.
The raid ended a standoff where the two Islamic terrorists said they wanted to “die as martyrs” rather than surrender.
Cherif and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34, repeated their connections to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Military experts who viewed unedited footage of the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo say it’s clear the men had military training.
U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Cherif Kouachi went to Yemen in 2011 and was seen at an Al Qaeda training camp.
The raid that took out the Kouachis was 25 miles from Paris. At the same time, a raid in Paris took out a fellow terrorist who had taken hostages at a kosher market.
Amedy Coulibaly is reportedly the man who killed a Paris police officer on Thursday as she was working a routine traffic stop. Police say Coulibaly and his girlfriend Hayat Bourneddiene were the suspects of the police killing. She remains at large.
All the men involved in the attack were confirmed to be disciples of Djamel Beghal, a terrorist arrested in the United Arab Emirates after admitting he was conspiring to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
After an intense crossfire French police have confirmed that the men responsible for Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo attack and Friday’s hostage situations are dead.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, were killed by police in a shootout hours after taking at least one hostage in a local printing business located in a town 30 minutes northeast of Paris, France. The hostage has been freed, but there have been no official reports to the hostage’s condition at this time.
Police also stormed a kosher grocery store located in Paris where Amedi Coulibaly, 32, was killed in a brutal shootout with police. Coulibaly was an associate of the Kouachi brothers. Although Coulibaly was a known associate of the terrorist brothers, there have been no official reports that the attacks were coordinated.
Hostages at the supermarket were freed, but reports have confirmed that four of the hostages were dead. There are no details at this time regarding how they were killed.
Paris, France is under siege again as police confront two dangerous hostage situations. One involving the two suspects from Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo attack and another at a kosher grocery store.
Police converged on the Charlie Hebdo suspects in a town northeast of Paris Friday morning. The New York Times reports that they barricaded themselves inside a printing business with at least one hostage.
Hours later, another hostage situation broke out at a kosher market located in Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris. The police have identified this suspect as Amedy Coulibaly who is suspected of murdering a female police officer on Thursday.
Police report that Coulibaly is an associate of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist suspects.
It was not immediately known if or how the two situations were related, but both underscored France’s days-long nightmare and anti-terrorism fight.
The latest unfolded near Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris, where the city prosecutor’s office reported a shooting and hostage situation early Friday afternoon. Police anti-terror units raced to the scene, while ambulances blared as they moved away from it.
Source: CNN – CNN: Charlie Hebdo attack: 2 intense standoffs in France
Police have surrounded a supermarket in Paris, as the BBC’s Stephen Sackur reports.
A gunman has seized hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris as police in northern France have cornered the two Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects.
A police officer told the BBC that two people were killed after a gunman believed to be the killer of a policewoman in Montrouge entered the supermarket near Porte de Vincennes.
Source: BBC News – BBC News: Charlie Hebdo hunt: Double hostage crisis in France